Aredhel
by Sorcha Cooper
Summary: an elf is transported to modern day earth as a baby, will she ever be able to find her way home?
1. A Dissapearance

* * *

In Lothlorien, fireworks rang out and the festivities continued late into the night in honour of the birth of Lady Aredhel, the 2nd daughter of the Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn. Four years older than her newborn sister the Lady Celebrian was already envisioning the fun she would have dressing up her little sister and playing dolls with her.

Meanwhile, on modern day earth, Niamh McMillan was becoming very frustrated yet again with the adoption agency. Finally, they were going to be able to adopt a baby when their chance was snapped away by the decision of the teen mother to keep her daughter. Niamh and her husband Ernie had already had a name picked out for the little girl, Annabelle Aredhel. Niamh, an avid lord of the rings fan and supporter of all things Irish liked older, fancier names such as Aredhel of Aisling. Her husband Ernie however was a fan of "good plain names" such as Anne or Mary. In a compromise the couple had decided on Annabelle Aredhel.

Wiping a tear from her eye as she thought of little Annabelle, Niamh thought back to she and Ernie's wedding day nearly ten years before.They had been so happy then, both ready to start a large family of at least six children. After five years of trying the couple had gone to a doctor who had pronounced Ernie sterile. "If only, stop this nonsense", Niamh chastene4d herself. She loved Ernie; he was a wonderful husband and would be a wonderful husband if only he got the chance. Immediately after that doctors visit they had put their names on the lists of several adoption agencies. And finally they had gotten to the top of the list....

Sighing Niamh shifted through the papers wondering if changing their requirements would help. The kid definitely had to be white, Ernie would insist on that. While not a racist her husband just didn't feel right in raising someone who would have to face the world on a different level. Hmmmm...mental retardation, there was no way she could handle that. Ahhh...here was something she could change; she checked the box next to small birth defects.

Saruman the white, of late of the company of Sauron, had been sent on a mission to prove his loyalty. Sauron had somehow discovered that in an alternate version of Middle Earth there were weapons called bombs and machine guns that could produce mass casualties. That Sauron didn't have a clue what these weapons looked like or where exactly they could be found didn't seem to figure in the matter. There was only one glitch in their plan. Saruman had discovered that the portal opening spell had to be performed within the vicinity of a circle of standing stones. The only problem with this was that the only known circle of standing stones in Middle Earth was located in the woods of Lothlorien, the greatest stronghold against evil.

After managing to use a transporting spell to sneak into Lothlorien, Saruman located the stones and began to chant...

In Lothlorien

Celeborn and Galadriel set out for a walk with their two children; Celebrian in a rather foul mood. She had begged and begged to be allowed to play dress up with her baby sister but her mother had said that Aredhel wasn't old enough to play dress up. However she decided to try one more time. Tugging on Galadriel's sleeve she began, "Nana, many I please play dress up with Aredhel? Pleeeaaaase?!" Exasperated, Galadriel snapped, "As I have already two times already today, no."

The family decided to take the path to the standing stones where Celebrian often played house. "Ada", Celebrian asked, "who's that man?" Looking toward the stones Celeborn saw a man, hands up in the air, chanting what was obviously a spell. "Stop" Celeborn shouted, running forward. Distracted, the man lost control of his spell and silver fire shot straight towards Aredhel and enveloped her. Suddenly she disappeared. Losing control completely the man disappeared in a mass of writhing silver. "Nana", Celebrian asked, "where did Aredhel go?"

_Nana-mommy_

_Ada-daddy_


	2. Adoption

Two Weeks later

Niamh tried to blink back her tears as she readied the plastic baby for her parenting class, wondering why she had ever agreed to teach the class in the first place. Suddenly the phone rang. "Hello." "Hi, is this Niamh McMillan?" "Yes." "This is the Montclair adoption agency. We've found a baby for you." "I'll be right there." Feeling rather apprehensive Niamh put down the phone and grabbed her purse, heading for the office.

An hour and several phone calls later Niamh and Ernie stood in front of the agency. An attendant showed the couple into a room full of babies. Picking up a baby wrapped in a pink blanket she laid it gently in Niamh's arms. "We found her at Bloomer Park by the pavilion," the worker began as Niamh looked down at the baby. 'She was so cute,' she thought looking at the little girl's blue eyes and blond hair suddenly giving a start as she saw the baby's pointed ears. "She's perfectly healthy," continued the attendant, having seen Niamh's start, "except for that one birth defect. Do you want her?" A quick glance at Ernie showed Niamh her answer. "Of course!"

As they sat in the office filling out paperwork the attendant came in carrying a little dress and blanket. "She was wearing the dress and the blanket was found with her," the attendant said in response to Ernie's questioning look. Taking the two items, Niamh gasped in astonishment. The dress, a light purple in color, was made of the finest cloth that she had ever seen. And the blander......wow! It was a work of art in itself. The name Aredhel was crosstitched in white across the light green fabric surrounded by embroidered golden and white flowers. Somehow, looking at that blanket, made with such loving care, Niamh could hardly believe that the child's family had abandoned her. "There, now all she needs is a name." Said the matron, shuffling through the paperwork. "Are you sure that her parents aren't looking for her?" asked Ernie, voicing Niamh's own question. "Yes," replied the matron, "we found her about two weeks ago and no one's come to claim her. We checked with the police station to make sure."

"We should name her Aredhel,"Niamh began with a tentative look at Ernie. Since it's on that blanket it's probably her name. We could call her Ari for short." Unwilling to upset his wife, Ernie agreed.

Back in Lothlorien

Galadriel was absolutely at her wits end as to what to do next. She had contacted everyone she could think of in her search for Aredhel: Elrond, Gandalf, Thranduil...but it was useless, none had seen so much as a glimpse of Aredhel of Saruman. Even Nenya revealed no trace of Aredhel's whereabouts. Hearing footsteps behind her Galadriel turned and saw Celeborn, the weariness on his face matching her own. "Any luck?" "No," she replied with a sigh.

Thinking he heard footsteps behind him Saruman cringed further back into the corner of the abandoned barn. Perhaps tonight these people would keep out of the town square lone enough for him to perform the spell on the standing stones. No, this mission wasn't going well, not at all. Luckily, when he had materialized the town square had been empty, for the only time in the last two weeks. It was when Saruman had started to ask after bombs and machine guns that the trip had gone wrong. The residents of the small town had looked at him as if he was crazy. It was only when he explained that he was a wizard from another world who needed them to help him fight a war that they had started to chase him with lighted torches. Shivering Saruman curled deeper into his corner. He had barely managed to escape with his life. He had managed to catch at least, the name of this place before they started chasing him. Salem....Salem, Massachussetts.


	3. Growing Up

Over the years Niamh had watched her daughter grow with pride, hardly able to believe that she had been gifted with such a wonderful child. Despite her pointed ears, Aredhel or "Ari" as she preferred to be called, had grown up quite normally for the most part. Except for several strange occurrences that had quite startled Niamh. One such occurrence was when a four year old Ari had fallen and scraped her knee. Gathering the sobbing child into her arms, Niamh had prepared to daube the wound with peroxide, only to watch the cut heal itself in a matter of seconds. Astonished, she had raced to call Ernie, only to be told that she was imagining things.

Another time when Aredhel had gone to spend the night at a friend's house, her friend's mother had come in to check on them after they had fallen asleep. She had come running out a couple of seconds later, screaming at the top of her lungs that Aredhel was glowing. While Mrs. Velthouse was scoffed at openly, Niamh herself wasn't sure that she hadn't had a valid point. She had often wondered if there was something wrong with the baby, having come in quite a few times herself to the sight of Ari glowing but Ernie was convinced it was only a reflection from the moonlight. While this glowing secretly worried Niamh, it also served a useful purpse. If one of the parents of Aredhel's other friends happened to "catch" her glowing, they would not mention it for fear of being classified along with that "crazy Mrs. Velthouse".

Besides these two occurrences there was only one other instance that had had Niamh worried. During her early childhood Ari had had a habit of going up to people and telling them what they were thinking. This had been cute when she was little but as she grew older people began to get annoyed and to give her funny looks. Attempting to explain to Ari that people did not appreciate children coming up to them and pretending to read their thoughts, Niamh had received only a blank look and a plaintive "But, Mommy, I wasn't pretending. Finally, Ernie, running out of patience, had ended the matter by sending Ari to her room without dinner, telling her that if she ever spoke of being able to read other people's thoughts again he would "tan her hide good".

Although Niamh worried about Ari's strange traits, there was one particular one that she was actually grateful for: Ari never got sick; not during the winter cold season or during the kindergarten chicken pox outbreak or even when the school in their small town was closed down due to a Bronchitis outbreak.


End file.
